Search

3 cases of early onset, severe eating disorder are described. These young children did not present a distorted body image even though they had suffered a great weight loss, were somatically distressed and in all other aspects fulfilled the criteria for anorexia nervosa. The criteria for anorexia nervosa are discussed for this group of young patients.

The ICD-8 diagnosis applicable to borderline psychosis in children is psychosis limitaris infantilis (299.02). Results from a register-based study referring to all Danish children admitted between 197

The present study is an analysis of the sociodemographic background of children and adolescents with OCD and child psychiatric control patients. The case records of 61 children and adolescents with OCD and of 117 control patients aged 8-17 years, admitted to a Danish child psychiatric hospital during a 17-year period, were analyzed with regard to sociodemographic data. The OCD patients differed in many ways from their controls, regarding problems at school and family background. Significantly more parents of OCD patients belonged to the highest social classes, and significantly fewer OCD patients came from broken homes. Parents of OCD patients had fewer admissions to psychiatric hospitals and fewer abuse problems than in the control groups.

Some borderline cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), schizophrenia, and manic-depressive disorder in whom the diagnosis had been difficult to assess in adolescence are presented. The records of 27 OCD patients with admission both in adolescence and adulthood were compared to a group of manic-depressive and schizophrenic patients with an admission in adolescence where the OCD diagnosis had been given. Some differential diagnostic considerations and difficulties in the borderline area between OCD, manic-depressive psychosis and schizophrenia at the time of the first manifestation in adolescence are described. The symptomatology in the three groups of patients as it was presented in adolescence only showed a few differences, and the patients offered differential diagnostic difficulties to the clinicians.

The charts of 61 children and adolescents admitted to the Psychiatric Hospital for Children in Aarhus, Denmark, in the period 1970-1986 fulfilling the DSM-III criteria for obsessive-compulsive disorder were reviewed for obsessive/compulsive symptoms. The symptoms were divided into form and content. The most common form of compulsion was rituals seen in 39 of the patients, and the most common compulsive content was washing. The most frequent obsessive content was thoughts about dirt and contamination followed by concern about death, illness and harm. The phenomenological feature of boys and girls was very similar, and only a few significant differences between boys and girls were found. One quarter of the boys and 12.5% of the girls had only obsession, whereas 27.0% of the boys and 37.5% of the girls had only compulsion and no obsession. The number of obsessive/compulsive symptoms was not found to correlate with the time spent each day on the symptom. It is concluded that there do not seem to be any intercultural differences between Denmark, India, and Japan as to the content of obsessional thoughts and compulsive behaviour in children and adolescents.